2012 BJJ World Championships Are Here!

Just like a little kid at Christmas, I will be getting up very early tomorrow morning. Instead of racing downstairs with bad bed-head to see what’s under the tree, I will be racing 2 hours from San Diego to Long Beach, California for the 2012 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championships!

It’s the most important BJJ tournament of the year by anyone’s measure. Twenty-six hundred competitors from around the planet have converged on the Long Beach Pyramid in a feeding frenzy of mats, sweat, shouting, and tears. Yes, there will be tears.

Last year Alliance BJJ came home with the team trophy, meaning that over all their warriors captured most of the more valuable medals at the event. According to GracieMag, this time around Alliance commanders Fabio Gurgel and “Jacare” Cavalcanti are bringing 10% of all participants! Alliance has traditionally been the most winning team in BJJ for the past several years but we have seen some vulnerabilities in their dominance over the last 18 months or so from some very hungry challengers, most notably the scrapping, happy go lucky crew at CheckMat BJJ, not to mention the powerful fighters from Atos BJJ.

While I have not been training on the mats the way the champions from those teams have been (or even like the average brown belt I should be has been, for that matter!), I have been getting ready for the broadcast, which I’ll be commentating on with the great crew from BudoVideos. Take the image below for example: look at all those pages I had to print!

All the print-outs I’m bringing with me! Stats, brackets, schedules… That must be an inch of paper! Click to enlarge.

If you’re not going to be at the Long Beach Pyramid in person this weekend, I really hope you will join us on the BudoVideos broadcast, which you can access right here. My co-host for the broadcast Shawn Williams and I will be bringing you the action live as it happens on every mat! You can also expect some interviews with big BJJ stars, and you can even jump in with us and the rest of the audience with the live chat!

Okay – I can’t delay anymore! I have to go pack and get ready for this weekend! See you there or online, Family!